March 2nd at Hunter College.For the past four years, weâ€™ve explored the political dimensions of media and how it shapes our lives. In developing relationships between community and media organizations, the NYC Grassroots Media Coalition is working to re-imagine issues of access to, control of, and power over our media system. That means defining our struggle as a struggle for Media Justice.Join us at the 2008 NYC Grassroots Media Conference as we seek to define our understanding of and relationship to Media Justice as a community, and explore how we can not only envision an ideal world, but make this vision a reality.

Reverend Billy, the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir and the Not Buying It BandSunday, March 2nd | 2:00pm At the Highline Ballroom. All Ages, Lunch and Spirits Served431 West 16th Street, New York NY 10011 | Between 9th and 10th AveTake the A,C,E or the L Train to 8th Ave and 14th StreetTickets $12 at High Line Ballroom or at the door!

BLOOD ON THE TRACKS,article by Jennifer BleyerPhoto by Times Photographer: Joe FornabaioNew York is a big crazy grid full of drivers who want to kill you,” says Mike Dee.

MIKE DEE, a 33-year-old bicycle messenger with waist-length dreadlocks and a chipped front tooth from a bike injury, has been zipping around Manhattan on two wheels for more than a decade, picking up and delivering packages, currently for Checker Courier.

In his spare time, Mr. Dee helps organize races known as alley-cats. Pioneered about 15 years ago by bicycle messengers to test the skills they developed in their work, these events involve barreling around the city and threading their way through traffic to find random destinations quickly.

On Saturday, hundreds of competitors will take part in Monstertrack, an annual event that is one of the cityâ€™s biggest alley-cat races. A few days before the race, sitting in his dark and cluttered apartment in Stuyvesant Town surrounded by a half-dozen bicycles and piles of spare bicycle parts, Mr. Dee talked about the life of a New York messenger, the rising popularity of alley-cats and the sheer anarchic fun of the race.

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Twelve years ago, I was working as a doorman and my job was hell. It paid a lot, but it was mind-numbing and boring. Iâ€™d always see these messenger dudes coming to drop off packages in the building, and they seemed like they were having a good time. They didnâ€™t have to wear a monkey suit to work. If they got hassled, they rose above it with a smart remark and a broken-tooth smile. I was like, â€œI want to try that job out.â€ I reinvented myself.

It was pretty hard. Physically, your body changes a lot. You lose weight and get stronger and eat three times as much as you used to. You get more of an engaged street sense when it comes to traffic and getting hit by cars. New York is a big crazy grid full of drivers who want to kill you.

I was a messenger for a good two years before I even started hanging out with other messengers in Tompkins Square Park, where all the couriers would hang out after work. They were like, â€œWeâ€™re throwing a bike race.â€ A bike race? Donâ€™t we ride our bikes enough during the week? Theyâ€™re like: â€œNo, itâ€™s different! Youâ€™re gonna like it.â€ Then I figured out thereâ€™s more to this than low wages and dangerous working conditions. All right!

The first one I went to was a Halloween race called the Noose. Basically, they drew a hangmanâ€™s noose over Midtown Manhattan and put checkpoints along the line. An alley-cat is: You look at a map of the city and pick 5 to 20 checkpoints. Then the racers have to figure out the most efficient way to get from one to the next.

Because itâ€™s an illegal, unsanctioned sport, anybody can come down, pay $5 and race. And if you donâ€™t like to race, you can be a checkpoint worker outside or at a bike shop or bar or strip club, depending on where we put the checkpoint, and hang out, drink, sign or stamp manifests and try to pick up some boys or girls, whatever youâ€™re into.

Iâ€™ve been organizing races for 8 or 10 years. Every holiday, thereâ€™s usually an alley-cat. Thereâ€™s the Valentineâ€™s Day Massacre. On Halloween, there was the Triple Six, the Noose, the Pentagram. I organized these races last summer called the Five Borough Generals.

Iâ€™m surprised we didnâ€™t get a visit from Homeland Security solely based on the names of the races. There was the Rumble Through the Bronx, the Broadway Bomber, the Staten Island Invasion, the Queens Riot and the Battle for Brooknam. It was pretty awesome.

The next one coming up is Monstertrack, which is a race that I helped start. Ten years ago, Monstertrack had 45 entries. This year there should be 250 people. Way more than half of them wonâ€™t even be couriers.

Originally only bike messengers and their girlfriends came. Now itâ€™s regular people on their bikes saying: â€œI want to do that, too. That looks fun.â€ Itâ€™s a cultural phenomenon for young post-college kids getting these yuppie jobs that donâ€™t pay them any money, figuring theyâ€™re going to be paying off student loans the rest of their natural lives, or who canâ€™t get a job anywhere but a coffee shop with their art degrees. Theyâ€™re like, â€œIâ€™ll just get this track bike and stick a U-lock in my back pocket and ride around.â€

There are categories in the race. Thereâ€™s the overall winner, the female winner, the first-place out- of-towner. Out-of-towners usually donâ€™t pull it together. They donâ€™t have traffic like this in other cities. Unless the guyâ€™s smart or gets lucky, they usually come in 10th.

For some reason, companies donâ€™t want to sponsor underground illegal bicycle races through the streets. Theyâ€™re afraid that somebodyâ€™s going to get run over and killed. At Rumble in the Bronx last year, at least four people ended up in hospitals. Three while racing and one, my own roommate, got run over going home. His hand was literally underneath a car, but it wasnâ€™t broken.

We give away a prize for Best Crash at every alley-cat. Usually itâ€™s pretty cool. A guy shows up at the finish line with his bike on his shoulder holding a broken front wheel, or thereâ€™s blood streaming down his head, or heâ€™s missing skin on his arm. You need to give away prizes for things like that.

The organizers of this years Monster Track have pulled the plug. There will be no main race on Saturday March 8th. Here is what Squid, had to say about the decision:

“The organizers of Monster Track 2008 have decided, after careful consideration, to cancel this yearâ€™s main race.

This decision did not come easy and was debated at length. Our reasons are many but the overall factor was that the race has become unmanageable due to the large participation and our concern for the participantâ€™s safety.

As many of you know, Monster Track started as a race held for a small, close group of NYC bike messengers. It has now become an overwhelmingly all-inclusive event. This, on its face, may seem like a positive direction for a race but in the context of a solely track bike alleycat it brings many problems. First and foremost, the safety of the racers is compromised. We believe that this is not a tenable position for race organizers.

Although the main race is canceled, please join us for Gold Sprints on Friday evening, Fixed Gear Competition (track stands, skids, footdown, freestyle, sprints, etc.) on Saturday and the Velo City Tour, at Kissena Velodrome on Sunday.

Well that sucks. I respect the organizers for their decision and realize it must have been a hard one to make. But it does leave me feeling a little empty. I mean what kind of outlaw bike community are we? I guess we’re all grown up now. At least we can go back to doing what we do best at the other events, Drinking, fighting with each other and vandalizing property. All kidding aside…I do think that Monster Track did a lot for the bicycle community. Not everyone has to go out there and skitch cars, hit pedestrains and be unsafe. I know a lot of people who just participated in the main race just to check it out, rode slow and embraced what a good time this is on bikes. Its sad to see that because of someones death (in Chicago) that we are going to stop this. For good? For just one year? Are other alleycats going to change. I know working messengers out there feel like there culture is being stolen and don’t want to be responsible for tragedy.

ABC news did a story on alleycats after the recent death at the Tour De Chicago:

Funny how the “I team” did a big investigation on “Alleycats” after someone dies. Maybe they should put that same effort into news when cyclists die from cars when they are following the rules of the road. HMMM. I know I live in a fantasy world.

Look for our Monster Track video which will be coming out at this years event. I may be the last documentation of this famous NYC alleycat.

Well the logic board on my laptop crapped out. Apple care was a worthwhile investment. So I’ve been unable to write for a while and we were away shooting an episode of our new television show: “Babylon by Bike.” We had a great time in Boston. More info coming soon.

Meanwhile tragedy strikes in Chicago which is going to be the home of the North American Cycle Courier Championships.

A young cyclist was killed during a race series.

Matthew Manger-Lynch, (29)was struck and killed by an SUV while he was racing in a local race series called: “The Tour of Chicago.” Yes, this was an unofficial race and may be one of the first people killed in this type of event.A flyer from 2006.

On the second stretch of the ride today, i was in the front pack, which was about 15-20 people. a fellow whom i’d only met that morning, a young guy named matt, passed me on the left, … two blocks later, our pack was approaching a huge 5-way intersection (lincoln/irvingpark/damen), matt was in front. i was maybe 20-30 feet behind him, with a couple riders between us. matt proceeded into the intersection, probably assuming he could dodge traffic or (as had happened up until then that day), stop traffic dead, as they usually see a pack of unruly bikers and stop for us, not knowing what else to do. this time, in this intersection, that didn’t happen. a GMC suburban SUV was coming from the right too fast – matt tried to swerve to miss it, but couldn’t. i watched in horror as the suv plowed right over him and his bike, wheels rolling right over both. the vehicle pulled over at the side of the road; matt lay in the middle of the enormous intersection, bleeding, not moving. the other riders stopped traffic, and gathered on the sidewalk at the other side of the intersection. i called an ambulance. we didn’t know if he was conscious or not – i tried, with the help of another rider (nico), to talk to him, shouting at him to stay awake, to stay with us, to hang on, to fight. there was so much blood. his helmet was fucked on the front and the back, indicating that the wheel had likely impacted his head. he convulsed a bit, never opening his eyes, never responding to our cries. i now realize he was certainly unconscious during this time. police arrived quickly (we had passed two of them a few blocks before), and shortly afterwards a firetruck and then an ambulance. they took over dealing with him, put him on a stretcher and into the ambulance. the police kept asking everyone around if we knew him. no one did. a few knew his name, and gave it to them. no one seemed to know him personally. we tried to find any info we could about his contacts, his phone, his family. others were somewhat successful later. we gave our names, and after much official delay, a few rode on to the hospital, and most of us went back to one of the rider’s houses (stan + rachels). we waited for info. when it finally came, we were told he was pronounced dead on the scene. his wife had been found and had made it to the hospital. i can only imagine how she feels. my deepest condolences go out to his wife and family. the scene of the accident plays over and over in my head. i don’t know exactly at what point he died. i’m leaving the house now again, and heading directly to a bike shop to purchase a helmet.

Fashion week has moved on to London but the bike community in New York, is still chatting about the great orange props DKNY left us in their annoying attempt to promote themselves…I mean promote biking, I mean promote thinking about biking, I mean thinking about themselves looking good and maybe forgetting what they were supposed to think about…biking or something orange.

To be fair, DKNY wanted to put up white bikes and were quickly thwarted. Not because of the blatant rip-off of sacred ghostbike memorials dedicated to lives lost for biking, but more importantly to be respectful of the fashion rule before Memorial Day, and didn’t want to piss anyone off. Besides the new rule for Spring 08 is Orange is the new white.

Here are two more articles which came out in local papers with some fine reporting on orange bike fever.

Jefferson Seigel came out last Friday for the cat fight out front of the Fashion Week Mecca, sometimes known as Bryant Park. He filled this report in the paper he works for, the Villager. Photo by Jefferson,Cycling activist Anya, mimicking a fashion model, vogued on an orange bike.

Title–Cyclists: DKNY knocked off our â€˜ghost bikeâ€™ idea

By Jefferson Siegel

Just before the start of Fashion Week, dozens of neon-orange-painted bicycles appeared around the city chained to lampposts. Stenciled on each was the Web site address for the fashion company DKNY.